The Information Super Highway Was Paved With Good Intentions

Want to Listen to This Post?

Watch below or check out more videos on my YouTube Channel.

As we continue to hurl ourselves into Idiocracy territory, I thought about the last 25 years of my life.  After all, my 25th reunion is this fall.  Good time to reflect.  Look back on my adult life.  Cry in the corner a bit.

What I discovered is that for all the technological innovation we’ve seen in the last two decades, we’ve become incredibly stupid and selfish.  If I could go back in time and change one thing, I might actually make the ultimate sacrifice.  I might try to prevent the invention of the Internet.

I know.

I KNOW.

What madness is this?  Why, on Earth would you un-invent the Internet?   Aren’t you selling shirts, online?   Aren’t you trying, and failing, to produce YouTube videos?  Yeah, but that doesn’t change the truth.  And, before you start clutching your routers and barking madly, understand where I’m coming from on this.  It’s like Terminator 2.  No matter how hard they tried to keep Skynet from happening, it happened.  Granted, it happened in a bad way, a la Terminator 3, but it was inevitable.   Now, I don't want to keep the Internet from ever happening.   I only wish to delay the process until we are better equipped, mentally and emotionally, to handle it.

We were given fire by the Gods and we ended up torching the world.  We literally did not understand what we were given.    For awhile we just did silly things with the Internet.   Hell, we still do.  Cats playing keyboards, planking, Hadouken pics, Horse Head Mask videos, memes, vines...  But soon, it warped and became something different.   There was porn… so much porn.  Then there were cell phones and soon commercial WiFi.  iPods. Tidepods  iPhones. 

Facebook, Instagram, Elvis Presley, Disneyland.

It spiraled out of control.   Slang (OMG, WTF,  ROTFLMAOBBQ)

We became addicted to technology.  Our lives revolved around little devices that did everything for us.   A phone replaced a pager, a camera, a gaming device, a laptop, watch, GPS, radio, Walkman, and tons of other devices.  It became the Swiss Army Lazy Man.   Texting gave way to sexting.   Polaroids gave way to selfies-in-a-bathroom-with-duck-face being Instagramed and put up on Facebook.  “Like, please!”  (read: I have no self-esteem and need constant and instant approval to maintain my shell of an existence.)  Soon, there was cyber-bullying.   Hacking phones, emails, the need for 24/7 news that may or may not even be accurate spread like a wildfire. Hacking of elections and influencing voters' minds.  Fake News, trolls, and bots.  We have become unable to put the genie back into the bottle.

And, I don’t think we ever will.   Isn’t it odd that in the last 25 years we’ve invented things that bring us closer together, more so than ever before, yet they put us farther apart in terms of actually connecting with people.  Used to be, if you wanted to reach someone, you had to catch them at home, by phone.   Now, you call their cell.  And, in a lot of cases, they want you to hang up and just text.    Also, isn’t it odd that in the last 25 years, so much technology has come about yet, what’s the last thing we cured?  Polio, I think.  We’ve created a generation of customers.

Our kids?  Our kids have become over-privileged and entitled. 

“Well, Johnny has an iPod and he’s seven.” “Well, Johnny is also a selfish brat that can’t wipe himself yet, but can send a text.  He probably still wets the bed.”

Nobody wants to work for anything.  And I don’t mean the entitled vs. the uneducated.  I’m talking about EVERYONE.   Somewhere along the way, we lost our mission.   Our grandparents went to WWII.  They sacrificed a lot of things in order to keep the country running.   Now, we’re asked to give up something and suddenly, since 9/11, our government is either out to control or enslave us.  Take away our rights.  Funny.  Our grandparents sacrificed a lot in order to give their family a better life.   Our parents, well, at least mine, gave up a lot of stuff in order to make our lives better.   They scrimped and saved.  They went without new clothes or fancy appliances.  They made ends meet and did what they could to ensure that we never had to live like that, ever.   And somehow, we thought, “Oh, cool.  Great.  Thanks.”  And that was it.  We accepted their generous offer.  We watched as they worked hard and bled for us and we just took that better life and continued to not pay it forward, but instead we cheapened the thought.

We were given so much without having to ask for it and yet, when it came to our children, or the next generation born into the millennium, they didn’t understand what our parents did to provide, because we were the end result.  We didn’t continue the trend.   We didn’t have to work hard anymore.   Technology caught up and made it easier.   Hell, I am just as responsible.   I work in an office all day, but I also run a business where I don’t have to put a lot of effort into it and am rewarded, monetarily.   Granted, I wish I could work more on it.   I know the quality would benefit, but at the end of the day, I get emails saying , “Congrats on your sale” with no deserving of that praise.  The Internet has done the work for me.

We take to Facebook and instead of sharing our lives with each other, we share half assed researched and cited examples of hate against one group or another.   I can count on at least one hand how many friends I have on Facebook that never say a word, yet post CONTINUALLY their disdain for one group or another in this world.   And 9 times out of 10, they share from one subjective group that is not even factual all the time.  It’s just a funny picture, or what they claim to be funny, slamming another person/group/religion/etc.   They don’t say “Hi”, or “How are you” they say, “Here’s why you’re all wrong and I’m right” in graphic form.  And for all that friending and sharing that goes on, I believe we are more so divided than we ever were as a civilization.   Friends are not friends, they are an audience for our amusement and our agendas.  We don't connect, we try to redirect.

We do not deserve the Internet.    If aliens were to come here, looking for intelligent life, we’d be blown off the face of the galaxy like we were a plague. 

“For the love of Blurg!   Zyphos, we must eradicate this menace on Earth before it spreads and infects us.”  

“How do you know that, Lishu?” 

“I saw it on Reddit.   And Grimjor saw a post on Zarnbook that he shared from "I bet this Gorpcar can get more likes than Firtarp.”

100 Andelorians like this.  (Picture of a tentacle in a thumbs up position.)

So, yeah.  Let’s go back, blow the servers and tell the geeks of the 90s to keep working on it and we’ll work on being better humans, so that one day, we may be deserving of such an awesome power.

2015 Annual D-Bag of the Year Awards

Ten contenders.  Twelve months of Douchebaggery.  

In past years, I've devoted multiple posts to this topic.   I've slacked and I've phoned it in.   To be truthful, my blogging days are numbered.  But, I couldn't help but honor tradition, so I've narrowed the focus to just ten on the list.  And here they are:

10. EA – Selling You A Car, Then Requiring You To Buy The Engine After The FactI included EA on this list for one simple fact.  They have not learned a damn thing in the last few years.  After SimCity, and Sims 4, you would think they would not let another title be released with their name on it unless it delivered a better experience than previous installments and with the release of Star Wars Battlefront for next gen consoles and PC, they went ahead and did exactly that.  No single player campaign, no space battles, stripped down, reskinned play of Battlefield, and DLC for all the credits you can muster.  You pay $60 for a game, and then on top of that, another $50 for DLC pass.  That’s $110 for a game, not to mention it lacks all the things previous Battlefront titles had.  Well, the nerds have spoken and the price at GameStop was slashed by about $20.  Not sure if that’s GameStop realizing it’s a dying institution in the digital download age, or if the sales of the game were really that bad.  I kind of hope both apply, really.  In the meantime, I still play Battlefront II on PC with multi player through Steam and it was a steal!   All the stuff I want from a game that is over ten years old and is still great.

9.  Roger Goodell – CEO of Thuggery INC. aka The NFL

Goodell has made this list numerous times and why stop now?   This year he’s managed to try and look tough by instituting a four game suspension on Tom Brady for his role in deflategate, only to have it overturned in the courts?  Really? REALLY?  Come on, anyone who believes that this was Goodell being beaten in court by the Patriots needs to understand that Goodell and Kraft are bros.   Roger only appears to be tough on the Patriots, realizing that whatever he tries to lob at the club will look like he’s being tough but won’t stick long enough to do any damage.   After all, Brady started on opening day and the Patriots are currently 11-2.   On top of this, the ridiculous fining of players and the allowing of thuggery like Greg Hardy’s domestic abuse allegations that were somehow expunged from his record and he still plays manages to be another reason why I stopped watching football two years ago.   Goodell’s salary is another point of contention.  The NFL was a non-profit league that manages to pay its CEO $35 million this past year.   Goodell is a horrible commissioner that makes the league money.  That is why he’s allowed to be in charge.   The owners, for all their supposed hatred of the man, continue to make money off of his buffoonery.   Pure and simple, though, Goodell is a d-bag first team, all American.

 

8. VW – The Diesel Bug That Couldn’t

Funny thing about new vehicles; they have more features, more electronics, and more problems than the old ones.   The upside is that with all that innovation, they’re supposed to be more efficient and cleaner… but VW didn’t think anyone would notice that their ECU software was circumventing environmental regulations.  Hell, they touted it as a selling point, and got caught.  Stock went down, they tried to buy back the vehicles rather than fix them.    I guess, as a fair play follower, it’s nice to know they got caught with their lips on the tailpipe, but companies do bad all the time and they get caught, but does anyone, other than the consumer, every pay for it?  

7.  Death – Perennial Favorite and All Around D-Bag of Bones

Death, you had a busy year.  Between Paris x2, San Bernardino, and every other tragedy that claimed the lives of humans, you didn’t take time off to nip a few notable people from the ranks of the living.

Mario Cuomo, Beau Biden, Stuart Scott, Fred Dalton Thompson, Jackie Collins, Leonard Nimoy, John Nash, Yogi Bera, Christopher Lee, Donna Douglas, Rod Taylor, Taylor Negron, Anita Ekberg, Bob Simon, David Carr, Sam Simon, Bobbi Kristina Brown, Colleen McCullough, Terry Pratchet, Leslie A. Williams, James Best, Geoffrey Lewis, Percy Sledge, Mary Doyle Keefe, Ben E. King, BB King, James Horner, Nicholas Winton, Amanda Peterson, Jerry Weintraub, Omar Sharif, Alex Rocco, Roddy Piper, Frank Gifford, Julian Bond, Emma Didlake, Yvonne Craig, Marcy Borders, Amelia Boynton Robinson, Alison Parker, Adam Ward, Wes Craven, Dean Jones, Ben Kuroki, Jean Darling, Martin Miner, Paul Prudhomme, Maureen O'Hara, Melissa Mathison, David Canary, Cynthia Robinson, Scott Weiland, Robert Loggia, and Holly Woodlawn are just a small sampling and if any of those names are unfamiliar to you, I suggest you look them up.  

6.  Josh Duggar – Ashley Madison’s Poster Boy

I guess it’s hard for a parent to keep track of what their kid is doing when they have more than 15.  Jim Bob and Michelle Duggar should be the poster parents for Planned Parenthood.  Their views, their practices, aside, the breach of Ashley Madison’s website, releasing all of the douchebaggery onto the web just goes to show you that when you voice your throw a bunch of stones from your glass house, you probably will end up with a few broken windows from them being lobbed back.  Anti-gay activism, child molestation, and extramarital affairs all prove that Josh Duggar is a d-bag and serves him right to have a few windows knocked out.

5.  Kim Davis – County Clerk, minus the “o” and the “y”
She gained infamy for denying same sex couples marriage licenses after the landmark ruling by the Supreme Court.  She went to jail for contempt of court in the matter and emerged with Mike Huckabee as a supporter.  In the fray, it came out that somehow, Davis had a meeting with Pope Francis during his US visit.  This was either a manufactured by Davis’ lawyer or in some way orchestrated as a chance encounter but the Vatican basically denied it happened the way Davis’ camp said it did.   It’s possible that the Pope didn’t know who he was meeting, but in any case, anyone who sits high and mighty, declaring herself judge of others, circumventing the law, while being a horrible role model for marriage, deserves to be on this list.

4.  Martin Shkreli – Hedge Fund Pharma CEO and Fraud Artist

He gained infamy for being the CEO of a biotech company that held the manufacturing license for Daraprim, a HIV drug, marking it up 5500%.  The pictures of this guy on the Internet, alone, would be enough to put him on this list.  His ‘bro’-ness is only matched by his douchebaggery by taking a drug that is used to treat AIDS and HIV and raising the price from $13.50 to $750 per pill in one fell swoop.  Why?  Because he could.  And as of November, the price has still not come down.  However, Martin, may be coming down with something if he is convicted of securities fraud and sent to prison.  Boy, wouldn’t that be karmic?  Raise the price of a drug to treat AIDS and then get it in prison.  Most likely, he won’t serve anytime or be put in some country club prison.  Shame.  He deserves it in the end… quite literally.

3.  Jared Fogle – Subway Guy Gone Wrong

I really tried to not jump on the bandwagon of hate when it came out that his foundation’s director was involved in electronically trading child pornography.  I said, “Hold up, we don’t know the real reason.  Let the investigation happen before the hate.”  Well, it did, and unfortunately, it was bad.  Very bad.   No one really thought about Fogle’s early venture into being an entrepreneur or of porn in the college dorms.   This detail came out of all the media surrounding the investigation.    It went dark.  Very dark.  Allegations came out that he paid finder’s fees to prostitutes to get him younger sex partners.   How did he keep this life secret from his family?  This guy had a wife and kids.  Very disturbing.  So far, 2029 seems to be the year Fogle will be released from prison and while he’s on this list for 2015, he’s on the registered sex offenders’ list for life.

2. Donald Trump – Billionaire Buffoon With Bountiful Bouffant On The Ballot

This guy is the Internet comment section come time life.   He’s not just an entry on Snopes, he’s basically his own hoax generator.  In past years, he went after Obama for his long form birth certificate.  Now, he’s running with the GOP and leading in the polls for the nomination.   He wants to build a wall, ban Muslims, and basically turn America into the alternate reality of Back To The Future Part II where Biff runs everything.  Look, I like that a non-politician has gained a following over career ones in the polls.  But, it’s not like we got Jon Stewart instead of Bill O’Reilly.  We didn’t even get Robin Williams’ Tom Dobbs from Man of the Year.    If you’re still wondering when the bottom is going to fall out, just remember, “Who benefits by Trump staying in it this long?”   There might be more to this than a supposed bid for the White House.   He proves the point of how horrible Americans can be by his hateful rhetoric.   In the end, he could never win the Presidency, but who will get the nomination?  Perhaps Trump is a puppet to boost some other candidate that will benefit from his sideshow.  I didn’t necessarily say Republican candidate, either.  Check his contributions.   Get your tinfoil and bring on the Michael Jackson popcorn images.

AND THE WINNER IS?

1.  Everyone – You Know Who You Are

OK, so I consolidated The Internet, Terrorists, The Media, and The Rest of the Politicians into a lump of douchebaggery.  Why?  Because it’s nitpicking the same thing from all of them. The Media reports something, construing the context, losing the full picture, and then the Internet shares it, via Everyone.   Politicians use it as their fear mongering in their campaigns, pointing to snippets of stories and stats to make you afraid and then you share it.  The Terrorists do something.   They do it to inspire others to join them, and their targets to fear the broad majority of their small ranks, labelling an entire group as the perpetrators.  Meanwhile, the fear mongering wins out, the lobbyists get their way, and you end up cutting ties with people because they are too dumb or jaded to investigate and see what’s really true and what’s pointed rhetoric.    Whether we call all Democrats baby killing, tree hugging, ISIS loving pansies;  the GOP warmongering, holy rolling, gun loving, redneck, big business loving

Bigots; African Americans thugs who should just listen to police and stop looting their city when someone gets killed; or all Muslims and refugees are terrorists; is pretty much the same thing.  We’re blaming an entire group for the action of a handful of people.   The biggest problem we have is extremism.  Whether it be Charlie Hedbo, the second Paris Attacks, the crisis in Syria, the Attacks in San Bernardino, the attack on Planned Parenthood, the attack in a church in South Carolina, Baltimore, Ferguson, Chicago, Texas, it doesn’t matter… We are all responsible for the perpetuation of hatred among the human race.  I don’t know what the answer is, but I do know that the current jabber on the political and social circuits is driving the car, and we’re just steering it into a crowd. We have to start taking responsibility for fixing the message.  The truth is we are all humans.  We are all white, black, Latino, Asian. We are all Muslim, Christians, Jews, Buddhists, Atheists.   We are all conservative, progressive, liberal, and pragmatic.   

And I will not say #AllLivesMatter because that goes without saying.   The fact that we have to single out one group to say, “We matter” doesn’t mean we discount the others.  It means that something has been wrong for far too long with the way we’ve been doing things that maybe we need to pay attention there.

If tomorrow, an alien race showed up saying, “We need you to send us someone to argue that you deserve to be saved from eradication by our superior firepower.”    If it were me as advocate, man I’d have a tough time saying we don’t.  As a human, I’d be hard pressed to say we weren’t horrible.    And some would say, that’s akin to not being patriotic.  And I would say, “Yeah, but if they aliens gave you a choice, guilt free, as to only eradicating some groups, would you consider it?”     The fact that you actually thought about it proves my point.  Should be a non-question.    We are the problem.  We are the d-bags of 2015.

Congratulations on a repeat win.